Posts Written ByTracy.Weiss

Fork Finds: Paumanok Vineyards Centennial Chardonnay 2012 @ Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York, NY

This weather cycle has not been particularly kind to those attempting to visit or live and work on the East End in 2013. The Blizzard Formally Known as Nemo shut down the LIE for days and less-than-aggressive snow clean up on residential streets made it a little hard to get around out here. Fear not! There’s a way for Long Island wine loving concrete jungle dwellers to get a fix of something new and different from the North Fork without leaving Manhattan. Or even Midtown. Although she doesn’t look a day over 70 and her marble staircase is as grand…

Fork Finds: North Fork Smoked Fish Company, Cutchogue, NY

When I was four years old, my aunt and my mother left me unattended in the kitchen while they quickly went to handle something before a huge crowd arrived for brunch. I climbed the mountainous bar stool and sat daintily on the edge of the kitchen island. Seeing an unknown food — pale, orange and gleaming — artfully strewn across my Aunt Elaine’s good platter was too much for me to resist, I took a fistful and stuffed it into my mouth. Family legend states that day, I consumed a pound of belly lox and two of nova before they…

Fork Finds: Topping Rose House, Bridgehampton, NY

I used to work in reality television so I’m not really giddy about ‘celebrity ‘chefs. Except for Eric Ripert. He is the second Mr. Tracy Weiss. I also tend to avoid restaurants that are hyped to a level where food bloggers are foaming at the mouth to get in. How can any meal live up to expectations when I’m inundated with wild praise just a few months into opening? Yet, I didn’t let any of my usual rules get in the way of booking a table at Tom Colicchio’s Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton at the first opportunity. His people…

Fork Finds: The Bloody Boar, North Fork Table and Inn, Southold, NY

I used to think a Bloody Mary was the brunch beverage for weak-stomached, hung over companions who couldn’t handle a bracing mimosa in their current state. I’d laugh and focus on the bottom of my champagne flute, mocking their delicate constitutions as I watched them nurse a drink that brought to mind an astringent-laced salsa. That was before I had the Bloody Boar at the North Fork Table and Inn. Happily ordered on a whim, the lure of drinkable pork products overcame the tiny, high-pitched voice chirping “but you don’t like Bloody Mary’s” in my brain. House-infused vodka captures the…

Fork Finds: Scotto’s Pork Store Hampton Bays, NY

Sometimes the best Italian meal is the one you don’t have to make yourself. And have the option of enjoying in your own home. In Hampton Bays tucked between a real estate office and an UPS center, Scotto’s Pork Store has all the supplies for a red sauce Italiano feast. If you’re on your way in/out of town or too lazy to recreate your grandmother’s gravy, this well-loved eatery’ll do the heavy lifting for you. Many Italian grocery stores do what they do, but if you’re on the South Fork, it’s worth a stop for Scotto’s fresh sausages (both the…

Ice Wine: I’m Really Trying To Like It

A large amount of residual sugar makes me dizzy. Dessert wine tends to remind me of childhood cough syrup albeit with new and improved flavors. I hated that god awful faux cherry elixir. When the New York Cork Report gets together once a year to taste the best New York State has to offer, I sit the sweet flight out. On tasting menus in fancy pants restaurants, I bargain away my last wine pairing in the name of ‘something sparkling.” The nuance of late harvest anything is generally lost on me. Is the aversion in my head? Bias left over…

Fork Finds: The Railroad Museum of Long Island , Riverhead, NY

I don’t do diapers. I’m completely at a loss on how to calm a crying child. Handing them a dollar bill doesn’t always work, but sometimes my lipstick does. Either way, I do enjoy being the hostess with the most-est to visiting friends and family and that applies to all guests even if they are toddlers. When my pseudo niece and nephew (two and four) came to the North Fork for the first time, I was at a loss. We saw what happened last time I brought young children to a tasting room and I wasn’t up for that particular…

Let Us Eat Local: ‘Just Food’ Celebrates All Things Locally Grown

For those who spend their disposal income on the edible artistry of Manhattan’s best chefs, Just Food’s Fifth Annual Let Us Eat Local was like being inside Willy Wonka’s Fancy Fall Food Factory. The event benefited non-profit, Just Food, which keeps civilians in five boroughs of New York City connected with farms and local products. They engage the community by teaching how to grow and identity healthy food through CSAs, classes, outreach and Farm School, a program giving students a framework to grow produce in the concrete jungle. Forty restaurants rolled out dishes for a walk-around tasting using seasonal ingredients…

Fork Finds: McCall Ranch Beef, Cutchogue, NY

It’s not quite as adventurous as offal, but there’s something kind of wrong and taboo about eating your juicy burger in front of other cows. It seems rude. After all, the sandwich you’re enjoying used to be their friend. But in a world where *not* eating local is virtually a felony, it was only a matter of time until the North Fork would have access to neighborhood red meat. A region with an abundance of produce, seafood, and wine grown in our backyards would eventually need more protein to balance out the food pyramid or food plate or whatever they call it these days. Beef could join…

Fork Finds: Greenport Harbor Brewing

Where I went to college, there was a lot of beer.  Disclaimer: I didn’t drink any of it*. Natty Light, The Beast and an occasional mystery keg abounded, sending me directly to the bottom of a bottle of bourbon. The blanket statement of “I don’t drink beer” made me pretty unpopular when I lived in Boston, Massachusetts during graduate school.  I danced to chants of “you’re so wicked high maintenance” as I threw another stoli doli on my credit card. It wasn’t until I started worshipping wine that I saw the potential craft brews had to offer. But a girl…